Honing device for slicing machines



Aug. 29, 1961 DEE LA VERN lRVlN 2,997,823

HONING DEVICE FOR sucmc MACHINES 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 Filed Oct. 30, 1956 INVEN TOR. DEE AA Va /2w /El/// A rraemrv,

Aug. 29, 1961 DEE LA VERN lRVlN 2,997,823

HONING DEVICE FOR SLICING MACHINES 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed Oct. 50. 1956INVENTOR.

DEE 40 V52 AQl/M/ ATTORNEYS United States Patent 2,997,823 HONING DEVICEFOR SLICING MACHINES Dee La Vern Irvin, 2431 W. Capitol Drive,Milwaukee, Wis., assiguor to John Hansen, Bettendorf, Iowa Filed Oct.30, 1956, Ser. No. 619,232 12 Claims. (Cl. 51-246) This inventionrelates to a honing device for slicing machines. The exemplificationdisclosed shows the device applied to a well known type of bread slicer.

The type of slicing machine to which the invention is applicable is onein which one or more knives in the form of a band saw passes overterminal pulleys or drums and has intermediate portions of a run or runsheld in a plane substantially normal to the axes of the pulleys at thepoint of interaction with the work. In such devices, the knives havebeen honed individually. In bread slicing machines in which a number ofband knives or band saws are used, all of them having their intermediateportions held to substantial parallelism where they pass through a loafof bread, the sharpening has required a correspondingly large number ofindividual operations and has been very time consuming. It has,moreover, required expert work since the hone should be held withinnarrow limits at a predetermined angle to the plane of the blade whichis being sharpened.

The present invention takes advantage of the fact that as the bladeleaves or approaches one of the pulleys or drums, it progressivelytwists through 90 between the drum and the point of use. At some pointin the course of the gradual twisting of the blade, the blade will haveexactly the desired angle with respect to a hone which is held parallelto the drum axis. Moreover, in a machine using a large number of bandsaws or knives, the several blades will all have the same angle to sucha hone at corresponding points in their travel. Accordingly, the presentinvention contemplates an arrangement whereby a hone is guided formovement substantially parallel to the axis of the guide pulley or drumacross the paths of all of the knives trained over that pulley or drumwhereby, in a single stroke, the hone will engage every knife of theseries at precisely the right angle. A carriage upon which the hone issupported is made oscillatory to and from the path of blade engagement,and its ways are automatically gated so that the hone will contact allof the blades in one direction of reciprocation and will be lifted freeof blade contact for the return reciprocation.

By providing separate hones in position to interact with opposite facesof the knives, I am able to hone corresponding edges of all blades beinghoned in the course of a single reciprocation of respective hones.

In the drawings:

FIG. 1 is a view in transverse section through a conventional breadslicing machine to which my invention has been applied.

FIG. 2 is a view of the machine in transverse section on the line 2-2 ofFIG. 1.

FIG. 3 is an enlarged detail view in perspective of one of the honecarriages and the means providing the way which guides it forreciprocation, portions of a blade being fragmentarily illustrated.

FIG. 4 is a detail view taken on line 4-4 of FIG. 3.

FIG. 5 is a detail view taken on the line 55 of FIG. 4.

FIG. 6 is a view on an enlargtd scale taken on line 6--6 of FIG. 4.

FIG. 7 is a fragmentary detail view in side elevation showing one typeof blade which can be sharpened through the mechanism herein disclosed.

Since the conventional bread slicing machine here chosen as a means ofexemplifying the application of the invention uses a great many slicingblades, its upper and 2,997,823 Patented Aug. 29, 1961 ice lower pulleys10 and 11 have the form of drums. They will, however, be referred to aspulleys hereinafter. At least one of them is power driven through meansnot shown herein. The loaves of bread 12 fed to the machine over table13 are advanced by conveyor 14 to the slicing table 15 which comprises aseries of parallel bars between which the runs of the various knivespass. Corresponding bars at 16 hold the work to the slicing table. Thesliced bread issues onto a discharge table 17 leading from the machine.

The slicing blades 18 are endless bands and can be characterized asknives or saws. Ordinarily, though not necessarily, they have scallopededges as indicated at 19 in FIG. 7 to form shallow teeth 20. The bandsare necessarily concentric with the pulley axis when they pass about thepulleys, but they are maintained in parallelism with each other and inplanes at right angles to the pulley axis by means of the spacing barswhich form the slicing table 15 and the hold down 16. FIG. 1 shows howthe unitary loaves 12, entering the machine from the left, issue asslices 21 across the discharge table 17.

Inasmuch as the intermediate portions of the runs of the blades aretangent to the pulleys when they enter and leave contact therewith, butare removed from the plane of tangency at the point where they cut thebread, it follows that each of these blades is continuously variable inangle throughout its intermediate path of travel between the plane oftangency and the plane in which it does its slicing. Moreover, thevarious blades, if there are several, will all reach a given angularposition at corresponding points in their paths of travel. Thus,assuming that it be desired to move the hone across the blade at anangle of 14, a hone moved rectilinearly across all of the blades insequence on a path parallel to the axis of the pulley will alwaysencounter every successive blade at the desired angle. Moreover, sincethe twist of each blade is 90 between the plane of tangency where itapproaches or leaves the pulley and the plane where the cut is done, asdefined by the upper and lower guide bars, it is easily possible todetermine a precise point at which the hone should be located by simplydividing the desired angle into the total distance through which theblade twists 90. Thus, if 15 is the desired angle between the hone andthe blade, 15 is divided into 90 and the quotient of 6 is indicative ofthe fact that the hone should be located approximately of the distancefrom the point where the plane is tangent to the pulley to the pointwhere the blade is fixed at 90 by the proximate guide bar.

For the purposes of the device illustrated, I provide the machine frame23 with allochiral brackets 24 and 25, one of which is shown in detailin FIG. 3. Each bracket provides a stirrup at 26 for the bottom of theend member 27 of a honing subframe which comprises a guide bar 28, a rod29 and a bottom plate 36 which has a switching flange 31. The rod 29 ismounted in a lateral projection 32 of the respective end plates 27, thebrackets having notches at 33 in which the lateral projections 32 areinterlockingly received.

A carriage generically designated by reference character 35 isreciprocable longitudinally of the subframe. The carriage tube 36 slidesalong the bar 28 and is engaged by a forked arm 37 to which is attachedthe operating tube 38 telescopically engaged over rod 29. The closed end40 of tube 38 serves as a handle and projects from the machine to beengaged by the operator for manipulating the carriage.

The carriage includes a bracket 41 projecting upwardly from the sleeve36 and provided with an adjustable extension 42 which supports the honecarrier 43. The hone carrier is a channel-shaped member having one endsocketed at 44 (FIG. 6) to receive the tapered end of 3 hone 45. Theother end 440 of the hone carrier is threaded to receive a setscrew 46which has a concavely recessed end 47 engaged with the bone. The locknut 48 holds the setscrew in hone clamping engagement.

In this particular embodiment, the carriage sleeve 36 is not onlyreciprocable on bar 28, but is also oscillatable upon the axis of thebar for movement of the bone 45 to and from engagement with the blades18. In this particular machine illustrated, because of the horizontaloffset between the upper and lower pieces and the consequent inclinationof the several blades at the points where the hone engages therewith, nomeans of biasing the hone to the blades is required other than gravitybias. It will be evident that with the hone carriage at the extreme leftas viewed in FIG. 2 (the extreme right as viewed in FIG. 3), a singlestroke of the carriage across the series of blades will hone all of theblade margins contacted by the hone in the traverse. It will beunderstood, of course, that this honing operation will be performed withthe blades in high speed movement, in accordance with conventionalpractice, so that each blade edge traversed by the hone Will becontacted not at a single point, but throughout the extent of theendless edge.

Ordinarily the direction of honing will be toward the cutting edge, asis indicated in FIG. 3. It is also conventional practice to lift thehone from a blade to avoid contact therewith in the opposite directionof relative movement.

To accomplish automatically the lifting of the hone from the bladesduring the return stroke, gating is provided. Depending below sleeve 36of the carriage is a finger 49 having a guide member 50 at its tip.During normal operation, this guide member moves in spaced relationbehind flange 31 as clearly appears in FIG. 4. However, in the path ofreciprocation of the guide member 50 to be encountered thereby at theend of the stroke, there is a deflector 51 (FIG. 3) which may be cutfrom the flange 31 and serves to guide the member 50 through the flangeto the right hand side thereof as viewed in both FIG. 3 and FIG. 4. Theresulting oscillation of the carriage lifts the hone 45 free of theseveral blades. As the member 50 passes through the slot 52 of flange31, it deflects the spring gate 53 which resiliently resumes behindmember 50 the position in which the gate is illustrated in FIG. 3. Thus,on the return stroke from left to right as viewed in FIG. 3, the guidemember 50 is maintained outside the flange 31 and the hone 45 is heldfree of the blades in the dotted line position in which it is shown inFIG. 4.

As the carriage and hone approach the starting point, the guide member50 passes another spring gate 55, which has a normal position of offsetoutwardly from flange 31. This spring gate yields against the remote endof flange 31 as guide member 50 passes across it, but it springsoutwardly to the position shown in FIG. 3 after guide member St) haspassed beyond. On the next working stroke, the guide member 50 ispermitted by the spring gate 55 to pass inwardly through slot 56,thereby allowing the hone, subject to its gravity bias, to resume itsposition of engagement with the blades as shown in the full lines inFIG. 4.

It is sometimes the practice to reverse the knives on a slicing machineof this kind, in which case it is also desirable to reverse thedirection of reciprocation in which the hone is operative thereon. If,as a result of knife reversal or for any other reason, it is desired tochange the direction in which the hone operates on the blades, all thatis necessary is to adjust springs 53 and 55, so that spring 53 is heldopen and spring 55 is closed. Deflectors 51 are each provided withadjusting screws 57 so that when the screw is retracted, the spring ispermitted to close against the deflector. When the gate is to be heldopen, screw 57 is brought into contact with the spring to provide anopening for the guide member 50' to pass.

As will readily be apparent, at single hone will operate oncorresponding margins of all of the blades of the series, but it willnot operate on the opposite margins. Accordingly, as suggested in FIG.1, I prefer to provide a duplicate hone carriage and guide frame beneaththe top pulley 10 to operate on the blades as they return to the pulley,thus engaging their opposite sides to complete the honing operation.

Thus, in a stroke of each hone, I am able to hone all the edges of allthe blades, regardless of the number of blades. Moreover, honing at theidentical angle in every such operation is assured so that the necessityof skill is completely eliminated. In the past, it has been necessaryfor a skilled operator to apply the hone twice to every individualblade.

I claim:

1. A method of sharpening the several blades of a band knife slicingmachine of a type in which the several blades pass about pulley means,leaving such pulley means substantially parallel to the axis of thepulley means and thence being correspondingly twisted throughintermediate positions in which the blades have corresponding acuteangles respecting said axis to working positions in which the severalblades are substantially normal to said axis, the said method consistingin drawing abrasive surface portions of an abrasive tool transverselyacross successive blades at the said intermediate positions thereof andin a direction generally parallel to said axis and at a spacingtherefrom such that cutting edges of said successive blades arepresented to said tool at corresponding acute angles appropriate forsharpening.

2. A method of sharpening concurrently a gang of band blades, whichmethod consists in passing the blades about common pulley meansrotatable on a given axis, twisting them at corresponding distances fromthe pulley means into planes substantially normal to the pulley axis andmoving portions of the abrasive surface of an abrasive toolprogressively across and in contact with the corresponding surfaces ofsuccessive blades on a path substantially parallel to the pulley axisand so spaced from the pulley means that the blades are all atcorresponding acute angles to the abrading surface of the abrasive toolfor the concurrent sharpening thereof.

3. A method of sharpening concurrently the several band blades of amultiple band slicing machine, which machine has spaced pulleys aboutwhich the several blades are trained and intervening guide slotsintermediate said pulleys through which the blades pass in substantiallyparallel planes at an angle to the axis of at least one of said pulleys,which method consists in moving abrasive surface portions of an abrasivetool successively across corresponding surfaces at the sides of thecutting edges of the several blades in a direction transverse respectingthe paths of blade movement and in spaced relation to said lastmentioned pulley axis at a distance therefrom such that the blades havecorresponding angles to the tool required for the sharpening of theiredges and materially less than the angles of the blades in the parallelpositions to which they are twisted.

4. An attachment for a slicing machine comprising spaced pulleys and aplurality of band knife blades trained about said pulleys and havingruns between said pulleys twisted into parallel planes of use at aposition between said pulleys, the said runs being at correspondingacute angles to the axis of one of said pulleys at points spaced fromsaid axis and intermediate the last mentioned pulley and the saidposition, the said attachment comprising a tool having an elongatedabrasive surface extending parallel to the axis of the last mentionedpulley, means mounting said tool for movement parallel to said axis andacross successive blades at the points at which their respective runsare at said acute angles to said axis, and means for actuating said toolto engage its said elongated surface successively with correspondingside surfaces of the several blades for the sharpening of the edgesthereof, the spacing between the tool and the last mentioned pulleybeing such that the respective blades are presented at said points tosaid abrasive surface at a desired angle of sharpenlng.

5. An attachment for a slicing machine having correspondingly twistedband blades for cutting slices from a given piece of work, said bladeshaving twisted runs which at given points spaced from the work arenearly but not quite at right angles to the positions in which they actupon said work, said attachment comprising an abrasive tool, a carriageupon which the tool is mounted for reciprocation across said blades atsaid points, the tool having a substantially continuous elongatedabrasive surface for engaging the several blades, a sub-frame havingmeans for mounting it respecting said machine and providing a supportalong which the carriage is reciprocable, means mounting the tool foraccommodating oscillation of the tool respecting the carriage in adirection transverse respecting its direction of reciprocation, andmeans for effecting oscillation of the tool on said last mentioned meansto a position in which the tool is inoperative to engage the blades andfor maintaining the tool in its said inoperative position throughout onedirection of reciprocation, said tool being operable to sharpen theseveral blades concurrently by engagement thereof with its said surfacein the other direction of carriage reciprocation.

6. An attachment for a multiple blade slicing machine which has spacedpulleys and slicing bands passing about the pulleys and twisted intosubstantial parallelism at a slicing position, said attachmentcomprising a mounting frame providing a way, means for mounting saidattachment on the slicing machine with said way extending transverselyrespecting the blades at a point intermediate one of said pulleys andthe slicing position, the blades being respectively at correspondingacute angles to said way at said point, a carriage reciprocable alongthe way and provided with a tool support, and an abrasive tool mountedon the support and having an abrasive surface elongated in the directionof said way for reciprocation with the carriage and positioned therebyto engage corresponding surfaces of successive blades at correspondingacute angles to the planes of the several blades at corresponding pointsin which they are only partially twisted to such angles as to be engagedby the tool in proper positions for sharpening.

7. The device of claim 6 in which the means providing the way comprisesa bar, the carriage including a sleeve reciprocable and oscillatoryrespecting the bar.

8. An attachment for a multiple blade slicing machine which has spacedpulleys and slicing bands passing about the pulleys and twisted intosubstantial parallelism at a slicing position, said attachmentcomprising a mounting frame providing a way extending transverselyrespecting the blades at a point intermediate one of said pulleys andthe slicing position, a carriage reciprocable along the way and providedwith a tool support, and an abrasive tool mounted on the support forreciprocation with the carriage and positioned thereby to engagesuccessive blades at corresponding points in which they are onlypartially twisted to such angles as to be engaged by the tool in properpositions for sharpening, said mounting frame being provided with agated guide, the guide having spring gates and the carriage havingfinger means projecting to a position for engaging the spring gates formovement thereby transversely of the guide, whereby to effect movementof the abrasive tool to and from blade engaging position in the courseof alternate reciprocations in opposite directions.

9. The combination with a multiple bladed slicing machine includingspaced pulleys, band blades trained over the pulleys and twisted betweenthe pulleys into substantial parallelism, a subframe mounted on saidmachine and providing a guide way extending transversely of said blades,a carriage reciprocable on the guide way and provided with an abrasivetool support, an abrasive tool elongated in the direction of a pulleyaxis and mounted on the support for movement with the carriage anddisposed to engage at an acute angle to said axis corresponding surfacesof successive blades at points intermediate one of said pulleys and theworking position in which the blades are parallel, the planes of theseveral blades having corresponding acute angles respecting the abrasivetool-to be presented to the tool at the desired angle of sharpening, andmeans for moving the tool and carriage across the blades.

10. The device of claim 9 in further combination with means acting onthe tool in the course of its reciprocation in one direction of saidcarriage to withdraw the tool from said engagement in that direction ofreciprocation.

11. A device of the character described comprising the combination withmounting brackets, of a subframe comprising terminal members releasablyengaged in said brackets, a bar extending between said members, an angleelement extending between said members and provided with a flange havinggate openings, a spring gate spanning said openings, a carriage sleevereciprocable along the bar and provided with a finger controlled by saidgates, and an abrasive tool supported from the sleeve to partake of itsreciprocation and the oscillation of the sleeve resulting from theinteraction of the finger and said gates.

12. The device of claim 11 in further combination with a guide rodextending between said members, an arm connected with the sleeve and atube connected with the arm and telescopically engaged over said rod,said tube comprising a handle for the manipulation of said carriage.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS2,218,757 Kuban Oct. 22, 1940 2,537,512 Crissey Jan. 9, 1951 2,768,486Jones et al. Oct. 30, 1956

